Every time he shows up on screen, we know we’re getting two things: intense competition and unreal trash talk. For example, Anthony Edwards is perfectly cast as the arrogant young stud. We aren’t used to seeing real athletes showing their full athleticism in a film like this. It makes sense given that LeBron James is the executive producer and was able to attract high-level NBA talent to make cameo after cameo (Seth Curry, Julius Erving, Dirk Nowitzki, Trae Young, Luka Doncic, Tobias Harris, Kenny Smith and many, many more). The basketball in “Hustle” is so good that it almost feels unreal. What “White Men Can’t Jump” does well, “Hustle” does at a stratospheric level. It’s streetball, so it doesn’t need to be NBA-level in terms of skill, but it’s still so well done that I found myself in awe of the ability of the actors. My favorite basketball movie of all time is still “White Men Can’t Jump,” in part because of its heart, but also because Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes actually play the game. You can’t help but root for Sugarman to succeed, but what sets this apart from other heart-warming movies like “The Sandlot” or “Rudy” is that “Hustle” gets the nuance of the actual sport. Juancho Hernangomez, right, plays Bo Cruz in "Hustle." Cassy Athena/Netflix Sandler plays it like he’s on the brink of a heart attack the entire time, but despite all the praise I just heaped on him, the best thing about “Hustle” is … wait for it … the basketball. His character is Stanley Sugarman, a failed Philadelphia hooper turned NBA scout who finds a prospect with a troubled past on the streets of Spain. If “Uncut Gems” showed us that Sandler has another speed, “Hustle” on Netflix is Sandler driving comfortably in that gear. With “Uncut Gems,” Sandler introduced us to a different version of himself that’s captivating without being goofy. No one has done sports comedy as well as he has, but those films rely on Sandler’s “SNL”-esque character work. That’s not to mention that all of America knows what a medulla oblongata is because “The Waterboy” taught us. To date, not a single person has failed to understand the reference.
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